The Firewood Project/Transcript

WORK IN PROGRESS; NEEDS HUMAN REVIEW

[ horns honking ]

[ jazz music plays ]

[ geese honking ]

[ ducks quacking ]

[ moose grunts ]

[ water splashes ]

well, we got a great show

for you this time.

We're gonna show you how to turn

a furnace into a popcorn maker

to insulate your house.

I'm gonna be

splitting some logs,

I'll get rid of my valuables

off the bench,

dougie franklin will be along

with a few words of --

well, just words,

and bill and I are going into

the woods for a big surprise.

And now,

here's the ricardo montalban

of sock hunting,

my uncle red green!

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And now, here's the

hervé villechaize of basketball,

my nephew harold.

[ tires screech, engine roars ]

thank you.

Odd thing happened

to junior singleton this week.

A couple from the city came

right up to his front door,

offered him 200 bucks

for his wood pile.

Ha ha! That wood pile

is covered in ants.

What would they want

that thing for?

Junior didn't ask,

harold.

Once he heard "200 bucks,"

that pretty much

ended the discussion.

He just grabbed the money

and started throwing

the wood into the car,

which wasn't all that easy.

They had two phones

in there.

Why would you have two phones

in your car, harold?

Well, one might be

a fax line.

Of course, you know, he might

have two lines in one phone.

You know, that way, you could

talk to two people at one time.

Yeah.

Oh, you know what else?

If you had that call-waiting,

four people at one time.

Wa-a-a!

Oh, conference calling --

conference calling.

If he had that, he could

hook up everybody all

together at one time.

Huh-huh huh-huh!

So if you have two

phones, you don't need

any friends, right?

Basically, yes.

You should look into that

yourself, harold.

I was wondering about

city people buying firewood.

But apparently now

with a lot of these condos,

they have a fireplace in the

living room or the dining room

or even the bedroom.

There's a sad commentary,

when you got to

heat up your bedroom

by sticking something

in the wall.

Uncle red, these are

majorly successful people.

We're talking about

movers and shakers here.

Well, we have movers and shakers

at the lodge.

No. No. They're more like

waddlers and twitchers.

I'm talking about people

with money --

people we should have

here at the lodge.

No, wait a minute,

harold.

All we want to do is sell them

every stick of firewood

we can get our hands on.

We want their money,

not their company.

It's no wonder

the tourist industry's

dying a death

around here.

That's the way

I like it.

If you get tourists

and sightseers,

you got to have sights

for them to see,

and the next thing you know,

you're talking quaint,

and you know how I feel

about quaint.

I'd rather just rake in

as much money as we can,

and that's what we're gonna do

with this firewood thing.

Oh, yeah. Okay.

Well, then,

there won't be any trees left.

Who cares? We'll have enough

money to buy more.

[ engine revving ]

uh, excuse me, but, uh,

would the owner of

a 1964 pontiac strato-chief

just, uh, come and get me

when he wants to leave.

I just got to get

my monster truck down off it.

[ engine roars ]

♪ trapper jack

was hunting bear ♪

♪ a dangerous hobby

at best ♪

♪ they brought him back

to the doctor in town ♪

♪ and he was

a heck of a mess ♪

♪ there was

some assembly required ♪

♪ mostly teeth

and bones and hair ♪

♪ jack had always been

good with a knife ♪

♪ but, unfortunately, not quite

as good as the bear ♪

ha ha.

[ ducks quacking ]

well, you're gonna end up

on the couch this time.

Yeah. She's taking

a night course -- making crafts.

Created

a dried-flower arrangement.

Hung it on the wall, and you

said, "well, that looks silly."

the three words you should

never say to the woman you love

for any reason.

Don't ever say something looks

silly to a woman -- ever.

Now, I'm sure it's a bunch

of dried weeds, and flowers,

and sticks painted gold, jammed

into a hunk of green foam.

Something you'd sweep

off the laneway.

But you went

and you called it "silly,"

and now we're gonna

help bail you out.

Now, you tell her you've got

an optometrist appointment.

You come home an hour later

acting like you got new glasses.

You make a special point

of looking at her

dried-kindling thingy again.

You say something like,

"oh, I see it now.

"what was I thinking?

I like that.

"yeah,

I really like the way

"the big things are crushing

the little things there,

"and is that the real ragweed

on that?

"by golly, that is -- that is

an attractive unit there.

"what say we take down

the picture

of the dogs playing poker

and pop that baby up there?"

you -- you don't want to

go overboard, though.

It makes her suspicious.

No. No. That's right.

That's right.

And, actually, maybe give it

a little bit of time.

She'll start

building something.

Maybe it'll be half decent,

you know?

Or she may give it up

altogether,

go back to playing bingo,

and make some money.

Either way, you win.

Just give it a little time.

Yeah, never say that anything

she does is silly.

No.

Otherwise, she might mention

that spice rack you built her.

Or that new fishing hat.

Or that silly lodge

you joined.

Well, this week, with the guys

all out there cutting down trees

and chopping them

up into firewood,

I thought I'd take

the "handyman corner"

and teach you all

how to split logs.

Okay, first thing you want to do

is stand the log up straight

on a flat surface there.

And -- of course,

you want to clear all the stuff

out of the way

that's around the thing.

Oh, yeah.

You take a full swing with a ax

and come down

on something like a vise,

and the hair will stand up so

far on the back of your neck,

you can card wool on it.

All right.

We're all set to go here.

[ whoosh! ]

all right, now, you always want

to make sure the area behind you

is cleared out, as well.

Yep. We're fine.

Ready...

And...

[ creak! ]

all right.

Uh, let's try that again.

Okay.

[ creak! ]

oh.

[ creak! ]

all right.

[ creak! ]

[ creak! ]

oh. So, that's the way

you want to play it, huh?

Ah.

[ whistling ]

[ creak! ]

there's actually a safer

and, uh, more upscale way

to split firewood,

and that is to take something

here, which is called a wedge,

from the latin word "wedgie,"

which means,

"to split or rent asunder."

so, you just get that

started into the log.

[ bone cracks ]

all right, uh,

what's happened there

is that somehow my thumb

managed to get in between

the hammer and the wedge,

which is actually not

a good place for a thumb to be.

But one of the signs

of a true handyman

is his ability

to control his temper.

Right now, I'm feeling

pretty darn proud of myself.

[ crash ]

mind you, there's always

room for improvement.

Coming up,

we got bill out in the woods,

making some kind of trouble...

And ranger gord's

got a brand-new game.

Well, operation firewood

is off to a flying start.

Got all the axes

sharpened up.

And we're going through

chain-saw gas

like the recession's over.

Well, I hope you're being

respectful of the environment

and cutting down trees

that only need to be removed

due to disease and death and

the proper thinning of a forest.

Well, we're using

the 100-to-1 ratio, harold.

For every 100 oak trees,

we only cut down one.

I only wish

I had 100 nephews.

Well, let's not forget our

safety precautions, uncle red --

steel-toed boots,

protective eyewear,

and tying off the trees

so they fall correctly.

Too much work, harold.

The trees don't grow

over 60 feet tall,

so we stand 70 feet apart.

That way,

every man gets his own tree.

You don't have some goof

coming in at the last minute

and finishing her off

when you did all the work

to get her that close.

Well, how many trees

do you plan to assault?

50 a day, every day,

day after day,

until we're too tired

to do anymore.

Wow, that'll give you

a grand total of...

50.

You rolling there, harold?

All right, we're here

with our friend ranger gord.

Hi, red.

Hi, harold.

Yeah, hi, there, gord.

Uh, gord, we're getting

kind of bogged down

with the firewood

project there.

I wonder if you could

do us a favor.

Go out into the woods

and make a little "x"

on all the trees

that are easy to cut down.

Would you do that?

Well, that sounds like you need

to know more about the flora.

Oh, no, no.

I know flora.

Everybody knows flora.

Right, gord?

[ laughs loudly ]

no, I mean the flora

in the woods.

And you can learn all about

the flora in the woods

by playing this new game

I invented.

It's called "grabitat."

you get it?

You get it?

"grabitat,"

because you reach in

and you grab something

from your habitat.

I don't want to play

some dumb game, gord.

I want to

go cut down trees.

Play one game, and I'll mark

10 trees for you.

Deal.

Grabitat is fun.

You just reach in,

and you pull something out.

And if you can identify it,

it's worth five points.

Okay. That's pine.

Five points for me.

Your turn, red.

All right.

Let's see

what we got in here.

There we go.

[ chuckling ]

it's, uh -- I guess

that would be a stick, right?

That's a dogwood.

What's so funny

about dogwood?

Smell it.

[ sniffs ]

[ coughing ]

[ laughs ]

oh, that's funny!

You know, because you want

your game to be funny

if you want it

to be popular.

Uh-huh.

You know, I think this is gonna

be a great hit with the kids

because they can learn

all about the environment.

I'm gonna sell it all those

stores that sell earth shoes.

Okay.

One minute.

That's sumac.

Five points for me.

Your turn, red.

No problem!

Oh. Ha ha ha ha ha.

I know this one.

That's mint.

[ sniffing ]

no, it's not.

No, it's not mint.

Well, I've seen

that leaf before.

[ chuckling ]

all right. You got me.

What is it?

Poison ivy.

[ laughs ]

this is

the home-renovation feature,

where we show you how

to make your house more homey.

And, uh, this here,

of course, is mike.

Mike helps us out

with these parts of the show.

Well, mr. Green --

he sure helped me out.

He just saved my life,

is all.

Now, mike is with,

you know,

one of the prisoner-rehab-deal

things.

This man is a saint.

That's all I'm gonna say

about it.

Okay.

Uh, we're gonna show you a great

way to insulate your home.

Yeah, that's it, mike.

Now, you hear about vermiculite

and the foam

and the fiberglass

and so on.

Uh, what we like is

the industrial-grade popcorn,

and it's got a high r-factor,

you know?

Low in cholesterol.

Absolutely right.

And all you have to do is use

the heating system in your house

to blow --

no, no, no, no, no --

to blow this stuff up

into the exterior walls.

So, the first step is to take

the end panel off your furnace.

Yeah. Here.

I'll show you how it's done.

Oh.

Done.

See, I'm learning, eh?

You know, I-I said -- I said

the end panel here, mike.

Oh.

I can't believe it.

Oh, I'm sorry.

No, no, it's all right.

It's all right.

I don't know how

I'll get this back on.

No problem.

Don't worry about it.

Now, what you want to do here

is to turn your furnace

into a hot-air popcorn popper,

you've got to take a wad

of the handyman's

secret weapon, duct tape,

and you want to

just ball that up

around the fan belt there

so that when she gets going,

she'll vibrate up on you.

And that way, the kernels

won't burn too bad

in the heating chamber.

I'll get it.

Yeah?

No, no.

It's sticky.

You all right?

Yeah.

It keeps sticking to itself.

Yeah.

Maybe we'll just

use some rope.

Here.

You pull on it.

Yeah. All right.

Okay.

Why don't I

come through this way?

I think if you

came around the other way...

All right.

All right. All right.

You're right, you're right.

You got it.

There we are.

Oh, this -- this is

working against me somehow.

[ grunting ]

how much duct tape

have we got?

Two more ducks.

[ engine roars ]

this will all make sense

at a later date, I promise.

[ engine roars ]

all right, now,

the popcorn's gonna come up

through all the floor vents,

so you want to take the covers

off of all of them.

[ gunshot ]

mike: That's all of them.

Oh, sorry.

Oh, geez.

You okay?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm fine, mike.

All right, now, what you want

to do is cut a hole in the wall

about eight inches

above the floor

and line these two

right up

so that the popcorn

can continue right on up

and go up and fill up

your exterior wall.

So, what you need is a little

bit of temporary ductwork.

And you know what you can use

is a boot box like this.

Cut the ends out of it,

and then it's long enough

to join up the two holes.

You said

cut the ends off.

Yeah.

I cut the sides

off there.

Yeah, that's, uh --

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kind of short.

Yeah.

[ exhales sharply ]

I'm useless.

Well...

Useless.

Well, uh, uh, we'll --

we'll come back

a little later in the show,

we'll get her

all rigged up.

You're all right.

You're all right.

I'm useless!

[ explosion ]

red: Time for

"adventures with bill."

out in the woods.

Where else?

Where are you bill?

Where are you?

Well, he's around somewhere.

Yeah, there he is.

Wow. Look at all those axes.

With the "pick your own

firewood" project and so on,

bill, uh, decided he was gonna

kind of show us how to do things

and cut stuff up and --

oh!

And, I guess,

how to throw an ax

from one end of the woods

to the other.

Okay, bill, we've seen that.

Do you have the other axes?

Uh-huh, yeah. Yeah.

Bill doesn't get a lot done

in a day, I guess,

when he's working

in the lumbering --

he's kind of a lumbering guy.

You'd think that he --

well, anyway,

you got the other ax?

[ thud ]

ohh!

Uh, bill,

what about the other axes?

Yeah, good idea.

Good idea, bill.

So, we got the other axes.

Oh, out we go,

and, uh, I wonder where

the other one went, anyway.

Who knows? Oh, there it is.

There it is. Oh, that's handy.

Now, the thing about doing work

like cutting up logs

and everything --

you got to make it fun --

that's the trick of it.

Bill -- now, you got to --

you know, in -- there we go.

And you turn it into a sport.

I think it was mary poppins

who said, you know,

"just a spoonful of swinging

an ax makes your leg go down,"

or something like that --

I forget.

You know, and rather

than just chop up the log --

get right up -- get --

oh, oh, oh -- yeah.

Get right up there on top of it,

you know, and just --

and you can sing one

of those lumberjack tunes

and just kind of get

some of the real --

boy, that is big fun.

Ohh. All right.

Some parts of it maybe

aren't as enjoyable as --

as some of the others.

I'm sure he's fine.

Apparently,

you don't need all your toes.

And bill starts

cutting that up,

and, you know, I'll tell you,

it's good for you.

You'd get in terrific condition,

I would think,

if you did this

on a regular basis.

'cause we're hacking away.

We're having a good time.

We're feeling good.

I don't think we've had

this much fun in the woods,

uh, since the fire.

There we go. There we go.

There's -- there's the secret.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's progress.

And bill cuts it

right down there,

and I didn't feel good about

cutting her all the way through

because it was

his own chain saw.

So he thought what he'd do

is just finish her off

with an ax --

kind of a purist, bill is.

But unfortunately, she wedged --

wedged right in there.

Can't get her out.

Now what'll we do?

We're running short

on axes here.

So bill's got an idea.

He figures if we each

get on each end of the log

and start bouncing,

you know,

with the weight and so on,

we'll be able to spring that ax

right out of there.

It didn't sound

like that would work to me.

But I didn't feel like

thinking of anything else,

so away we go,

and it certainly spread --

oh, yeah, there we go.

It's working.

What about the ax, though?

Did the ax come out?

Yes, it did.

There we go.

Coming up,

we got winston rothschild,

king of the hosers.

And, don't worry,

we got the popcorn-insulation

project totally under control.

Well, there doesn't

seem to be an easy way

to turn trees into firewood.

Our window of opportunity

is closing fast.

Carpe diem, uncle red.

What?

Carpe...Diem.

Seize the day.

You're close, harold.

I seized the chain saw.

I think we're going

at this all wrong.

I think the profit is

in selling the raw materials,

not in marking up

the labor costs.

Whoo-hoo! Whoo!

I've never heard you speak

in business terms before.

Well, we don't have a business

relationship, harold.

With you, it's personal.

I know.

So I'm going to plan "b."

harold, tell me this.

What do people from the city

like to do most?

Uh, drive silver-colored

german cars?

No. I know this one.

It's, uh, uh,

pay too much money for clothes.

Ha ha. No! I know what it is!

I know what it is!

It's buy mutual funds.

Ha ha!

Okay, I don't know.

Pick your own strawberries,

harold.

No, no. No.

Harold. Harold.

That's what people from the city

like to do.

Pick strawberries?

Not the strawberries --

the picking.

They like coming up here

and pretending they're farmers.

Pick your own peaches,

pick your own apples.

Why not pick

your own firewood?

You got to give them

a pretty big basket.

No, no, no.

You just take the 300 bucks,

hand them an ax,

get them to sign

an injury waiver,

and point them at a tree.

There's a lot of people

going home without firewood --

or fingers.

I don't think that matters,

harold.

I think some of these guys

would pay 300 bucks

just to whale away at a pine

for an hour.

They don't get a chance

to commune with nature,

stuck up there

in the glass tower,

behind a steel desk,

playing with the plastic

computer there.

So what you're selling, then,

is stress relief.

That's right. Where else can you

buy therapy by the cord?

[ whirring, rattling ]

if my daughter is watching

this show...

Your mother and I would like you

to come back.

Did you know you took

my credit card?

[ sawing ]

okay, we're back

with this week's

home-renovation project --

how to insulate your house

using popcorn.

Now, all the vents

near the exterior walls

have been hooked up

exactly like this.

Now the furnace

will blow the popcorn up

through the temporary vents

and into the --

[ thud ]

into the --

into the wall.

[ groans ]

okay, so, what you want to do

is to close up all the vents

that are not

on the outside walls.

Leave one of them off

so that you can pour

the popcorn kernels

right down

into the furnace.

They're

supposed to be dissolved.

I knew that!

I knew that!

I'm stupid. I'm just stupid.

There. It's off.

We could have just --

we could have poured it

through the vent.

That's fine. That's fine.

No, that's fine.

You want it back on?

No, no, that's fine.

That'll work.

That's great.

All right.

You put -- you put

the popcorn down in there.

Okay, I got it now.

I'm sure.

No, no. No problem.

No problem.

Once you get the popcorn

all in there,

you put the vent back on,

and you close her up, yeah?

And you've got all

the other vents closed up?

Yep, all set.

It's all done.

That popcorn's in there

for life --

or...25 to life.

[ chuckles ]

well, he would know.

All right.

And I go over

to your thermostat here,

and you turn her up

to 90 or 100

or basically as high

as she'll go.

[ clicking ]

[ loud popping ]

[ air hissing ]

all right,

uh, once the popping stops,

what you want to do

is turn your thermostat down

to something reasonable.

Then you want to go

up to the attic

and, uh, check to make sure

that the popcorn

has gone to the tops

of all the exterior walls.

Okay.

When you said,

"close off all the vents,"

you meant the ones upstairs,

didn't you?

Yeah, well,

you pick up the popcorn.

I'll go rent us a movie.

Hey, uh,

that "birdman of alcatraz"

is pretty funny.

[ tires screech, crash ]

"for sale."

oh, boy.

"'86 plym. Reli.

"frnt-wheel drv.

Back air.

"cust. Uphol.

A.M./f.M., cas.

"bla. Heat. Mint con.

Cont. Stink. Pete.

Aft. 6:00."

I've seen that car.

P. Crap. [ laughs ]

[ squish! ]

well, now that we're going ahead

with the "pick your own

firewood" contest,

we thought we should talk

to our resident tycoon-to-be,

winston rothschild.

How you doing, winston?

Hey, red.

Winston, you'd be awful proud

of us up at the lodge.

We've finally taken

that get-up-and-go

business advice of yours.

We've applied it to a project

that's gonna make us millions.

Red, do you see what I see

when I look in this septic hole?

Look.

That's my future.

And it's swirling around,

and it's going

right up that hose.

My old man was right.

I'm useless.

Oh, come on, now, winston.

Don't get down on yourself.

I mean, it all started

with that genius

who invented

"pick your own fruit."

and then it's

"pick your own vegetables,"

and "chop your own

christmas tree,"

and now youse guys

are chopping your own firewood.

I mean, that's just gonna be

the final blow --

"suck your own sewage."

and then I'm gonna be

out of work,

walking around with a sign

tacked on to some toilet plunger

that says,

"will suck holding tank

for food."

geez.

I'll tell you,

my draining days are numbered,

and I'll die

in an office job.

I hate the smell

of air-conditioning.

Oh, now, winston,

if you're right

and everybody's jumping

onto this sewage-draining

bandwagon thing,

you could hire yourself out

as a consultant.

Huh?

Oh, you mean like...

"rothschild

sewage-and-septic-sucking

consulting firm"?

That's the one.

Ooh.

I like the sound of that.

I thought you might.

"where we know

what's coming down the pipe."

well, the

"pick your own firewood" project

was maybe not quite

as successful as we had hoped.

Our first customer

was eager to try it,

but when we phoned in

to check his credit card,

they told us he was

a convicted murderer.

We destroyed his credit card,

but nobody had the nerve

to ask for the ax back.

So, just let me get

this correct, then.

So, basically

you had no sale,

and you've lost your ax

in the bargain.

[ laughing ]

[ coughs ] okay.

One can assume, then,

that you're out

of the firewood business?

We're out of the "pick your own"

business, harold,

but the regular

firewood sales

are just gonna be on hold

for a while

until the cottagers go back

to the city for the winter,

at which time we'll have

easy access to their woodpiles.

You're gonna steal

their firewood?

Oh, no. It's not -- I'm not

ste-- I'm not stealing.

I'm log brokering.

What I'm doing is

I'm selling log futures, harold.

What we do is

we protect their wood

against the ravages

of winter,

and then we sell it back to them

in the spring.

[ screeching ]

well, speaking of rats.

Ha ha!

Meeting time, uncle red.

Yeah, you go ahead.

I'll be down in a

little while, harold.

Okay.

If my wife is watching,

I'll be coming straight home

after the meeting,

and I thought maybe we could

have a romantic evening

around the fire.

I'm bringing a load of firewood.

It is the

"pick your own style," though,

so maybe you could split it

while I'm having a bath.

And to the rest of you,

thanks so much for watching.

And until next time,

on behalf of myself and harold

and the whole gang up here

at possum lodge,

keep your stick on the ice.

[ screeching continues ]

okay. Sit down. Sit down.

And then all rise.

All rise.

All: Quando omni flunkus,

moritati.

Red: Sit down.

Now, fellas...